by Lisa Duffy
“I was never mad—I just think you could’ve been nicer to Quinn. I mean, she hasn’t been home at all, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it’s because of you.”
“Me? Why me?”
I scowl at him. “You stormed out of Madeline’s house when you found out she was pregnant!”
“First of all—I didn’t storm—and yes, it was sort of a shock—”
“Well, how do you think Quinn felt when she found out? Believe me, she’s been stressed about it too.”
He squints at me. “You knew?”
“Pretty much everyone knew. Except you.”
He sighs, looks down at his feet and back at me. “Anyway—she’s here. I stopped by Madeline’s earlier and asked her to come . . . so . . .” He tilts his head at me. “Let’s just go back to normal, okay? Cut your old man some slack.” He puts his arm around me, leads me into the backyard, and squeezes my shoulder before he walks over to the grill.
Quinn is standing next to Lucy and Madeline, hovering over Desiree on the ground with the puppy. She’s cooing and blowing kisses at him, a delirious look on her face.
“Libby—have you ever seen anything as cute as this!” Desiree gushes, and I shake my head, speechless. I catch Sully’s eye and he shrugs, as though he has no idea what’s happening.
Desiree slept over at his house the last two nights. Apparently, they’ve shelved talking about kids since Desiree got the yoga retreat gig on that island. She told Sully he could tag along, and now he’s taking surfing lessons and talking about how he’s fine being a kept man, following his girlfriend around the islands while she trains her wealthy clients.
“I’ve never seen her like this,” Lucy whispers to me. “I actually didn’t think she was capable of it.”
Desiree looks up at Sully, squeezes the puppy to her chest. “Maybe when we get back, we can get a dog?” she says, a hopeful expression on her face.
Sully shrugs again. “We can do that.”
Desiree grins and holds the puppy in front of her, their faces only inches apart. “I’m going to get one just like you! Yes, I am! I’m going to be a mommy to a sweet little boy just like you,” she tells him in a voice that makes Lucy turn to Libby with a blank look on her face.
“Well, I’ll be,” Lucy says, taking Madeline’s hand.
Madeline wraps her arm around Lucy’s waist, and Libby watches them wander over to the table covered with trays of food.
Quinn is standing next to her, gazing at them as well.
“Are they like . . . together?” I ask.
Quinn turns, a faraway look on her face. “Funny you should ask. Madeline asked me this morning if I thought it was weird that they spend so much time together. I didn’t know what to say—I couldn’t tell if she was hinting at something. Then she said that she just loves Lucy—everything about her.”
“What did you say?” I ask.
Quinn looks at me and shrugs. “I told her you love who you love.”
I feel something wet on the back of my leg and look down to see Rooster standing next to me, an enormous bone in his mouth, his tail wagging back and forth.
Across the yard, Flynn catches my eye, points to me and Rooster, and lays his hand over his heart, lets it rest there, determined it seems, to fix what was broken.
Epilogue
She names her son John Luke, a combination, in her mind, of the best parts of his father.
The first few months after he was born were a blur—she wouldn’t have survived without all the help.
Lucy kept her refrigerator stocked with meals, and either Libby or Bent stopped in every day to visit or do a load of laundry or walk the dog. Even Desiree surprised her, taking the baby outside in the stroller or bringing him upstairs so Quinn could nap.
Madeline insisted on paid maternity leave, but Quinn didn’t use it all—the twins are in kindergarten full-time now, and the nursery at Madeline’s house is much nicer than the one at her house anyway.
Plus, she finds the baby sleeps through the night on the days he’s with the twins—the trips to the park or playing in the backyard more entertaining than when they’re alone, just the two of them.
He turns six months next week, and Quinn still can’t believe he belongs to her.
She finds herself standing over his crib sometimes, just watching him sleep. Which is what she’s doing now. There are piles of laundry to do and the house is a mess and it’s already two o’clock in the afternoon and she still hasn’t taken the dog for a walk, but she’d rather stand here, gazing down at her son.
She hears a knock on the door and tiptoes out of his room, walks to the front door. When she opens it, Bent is in front of her in the hallway, standing with his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans.
“Hi,” he says. “I hope it’s not a bad time.”
“It’s not. Come on in.” She opens the door wider, but he doesn’t move.
“No—that’s okay. I, ah, just wanted to ask you something.”
She looks at him, waits. He pulls his hands out of his pockets, studies his palms.
“What?” she asks finally.
He looks up at her. “Well . . . I wanted to see if maybe . . . I don’t know . . . you wanted to grab a bite to eat tonight. Maybe see a movie?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Like a date? Are you asking me on a date?”
“I remember you said you’d never been on a date before. I’ve been wanting to ask you but, you know, with the baby . . .” He stops, meets her eye. “So yeah. A date. Would you like to go on a date with me?”
“Yes,” she tells him. “I’d love to go on a date with you.”
He smiles, nods.
“But maybe we could just do dinner here,” she says. “I don’t have a babysitter.”
“Oh—stupid me. Libby said she’d babysit. If that’s okay.”
“Of course, it is—he loves Libby. It’s just . . . I don’t want her to feel like she has to—”
He shakes his head. “It was her idea. She said if I didn’t stop pining away and ask you out, she was going to murder me.”
“Pining, huh?” She smiles, and he shrugs, nods.
She leaves him standing in the hallway after they say goodbye.
She shuts the door but a moment later, when she moves the curtain covering the glass, he’s still standing where she left him, looking at her, with that tilt of his head. That look. She waves him away, and he winks at her, finally turns to the stairs.
She walks to the nursery and stands over the crib. On the table next to her are several pictures.
One of her favorites of John, smiling at the camera, a football between his hands. Another of John and Bent in their uniforms.
A larger frame sits on the corner of the table. The picture of John’s father, her son’s grandfather. The man John knew nothing about.
She’s already writing down memories before she forgets them. Stories she can pass on to her son; details that can’t be forgotten; a life that must be remembered.
She looks down at her child sleeping in the crib. Drinks in his features, his lips already so much like John’s. She will tell her son about his father.
She will tell him all of it.
Acknowledgments
My deepest gratitude and thanks to: My editor, Kaitlin Olson, for her intelligence, insight, and dedication to this story. The book is better for it.
The entire team at Atria for their enthusiasm and hard work.
My agent, Danielle Burby, for her unflagging guidance, generous spirit, and brilliant mind. I could wish for no better advocate and friend.
Kristy Barrett (A Novel Bee), Stacey Armand (Prose and Palate), Kate Olson (kate.olson.reads), Chandra Claypool (wherethereadergrows), Kourtney Dyson (kourtneysbookshelf), Laurie Baron (booksandchinooks), and the many other bookstagrammers and bloggers who spend countless hours helping authors get our books into the hands of future readers, simply for the love of the written word.
Ged Driscoll, Ben Dexter, and J
im Vachon for their military expertise and patience answering questions.
(Former) Staff Sergeant Alexis Hilgert (USAF) and Major John Hilgert (USA) for offering their wise counsel. From correcting errors to reading drafts, they helped with details large and small, and the novel would not have been the same without them.
Pam Loring, founder of the Salty Quill Writers Retreat, along with Deb Boles, Melanie Winklosky, Jill Butler, and Lisa Greggo. All talented writers and women with incredibly generous spirits who enriched my days and nights on McGee Island during the early stages of this book.
Fellow writer and cherished friend Lisa Roe for her good humor, huge heart, and remarkable wit.
My mother, Peg Hamilton, for her inexhaustible faith, and all my family and friends for their continued enthusiasm and support. In particular, Chris and Tina Hamilton, Julie Spence, Jen Roopenian, Nancy Schofield, and Jen Tuzik.
Lauren Wheble and Mitch Miller, Heidi Wheble and Scott Hosker, Hutton and Alyssa Collin. My beloved fam squad, for the love, laughter, and friendship they bring to my life.
Sam, Matt, and Mia. For the gift of you.
And most of all, my husband, Tom Wheble. For everything.
This Is Home
Lisa Duffy
This reading group guide for This Is Home includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Lisa Duffy. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
Sixteen-year-old Libby Winters lives in Paradise, a seaside town north of Boston that rarely lives up to its name. After the death of her mother, she lives with her father, Bent, in the middle apartment of their triple-decker house. Bent’s two sisters, Lucy and Desiree, live on the top floor. A former soldier turned policeman, Bent often works nights, leaving Libby in her aunts’ care. Shuffling back and forth between apartments—and the wildly different personalities of her family—has Libby wishing for nothing more than a home of her very own.
Quinn Ellis is at a crossroads. When her husband, John, who is back home after serving two tours in Iraq, goes missing, suffering from PTSD that he refuses to address, Quinn finds herself living in the first-floor apartment of the Winterses’ house. Bent had served as her husband’s former platoon leader—John refers to Bent as his brother—and, despite Bent’s efforts to make her feel welcome, Quinn has yet to unpack a single box.
For Libby, the new tenant downstairs is an unwelcome guest, another body filling up her already crowded house. But, soon enough, an unlikely friendship begins to blossom as Libby and Quinn grow a little more flexible and begin to redefine their understanding of family and home.
With gorgeous prose and a cast of characters who feel wholly real and lovably flawed, This Is Home is a nuanced and moving novel of finding where we belong.
Topics and Questions for Discussion
1. For the novel’s epigraph, Lisa Duffy chooses a quotation by the poet Muriel Rukeyser: “My lifetime / listens to yours.” Why do you think she picked this particular line to embody the novel? Discuss how you think it relates to the themes and characters of This Is Home.
2. The novel alternates between Libby and Quinn’s points of view in every chapter. Do you think this was an effective storytelling technique? Also, why do you think Libby’s chapters are narrated in the first-person point of view, while Quinn’s chapters are written in the third person? What overall effect did this have on your reading experience?
3. Libby begins her side of the story with a story about her father, Bent: “The year I turned ten, my father shot the aboveground pool in our backyard with his police-issued pistol”. Why do you think she begins with this particular anecdote? What does it tell us about both Libby and Bent?
4. Rooster Cogburn, the ninety-seven-pound shelter mutt, is just as much of a character in the story as his human counterparts. Discuss Rooster’s role in the story: How does he bring the characters together, and how does he stand as another symbol for family?
5. “Paradise is like that, though; everything stuffed in tight”. While Libby may be speaking literally of her town in this statement, consider the sentence with “paradise” taking a more figurative meaning. Do you agree? In what ways might the setting of This Is Home constitute a kind of paradise for its inhabitants?
6. This Is Home shows a wide range of different types of families: Libby, Bent, Desiree, and Lucy; Madeline, her twins, and Quinn; Quinn and John; Flynn and Jimmy; Madeline and Lucy. What defining traits do all of these families share? Discuss any other nontraditional families in the book that you can think of.
7. “And in my mind, I’d think, dying isn’t the only way someone disappears”. Consider this statement of Libby’s. What do you think she means? Do you agree?
8. From relationships between veterans and their wives to Desiree’s resisting a life as a mother, how do the characters in This Is Home respond to—and resist—traditional gender roles?
9. “I said John is a good soldier. Doesn’t mean he was a good husband”. Consider this statement of Bent’s. How do you think we change in the many different roles we embody in a lifetime? Discuss.
10. Compare Quinn’s attraction to Bent to Libby’s attraction to Jimmy. In what ways are they similar?
11. Photographs carry great sentimental value to the characters in This Is Home, especially Quinn. Why do you think photos mean so much to her?
12. Jimmy reads some sections of Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried aloud to Libby. Consider this particular passage: “You feel an intense, out-of-the-skin awareness of your living self—your truest self, the human being you want to be and then become by the force of wanting it. In the midst of evil, you want to be a good man”. How might this passage relate to Bent, Jimmy, and John?
13. Why do you think it’s so important for Quinn to see the puppy that John gave away? What does her willingness to finally go look at him signal about her character development?
14. Consider the meaning of “home” as it relates to the novel. How does the meaning shift from character to character? Discuss how “home” can carry both positive and negative connotations for the characters of This Is Home.
Enhance Your Book Club
1. Consider reading Lisa Duffy’s first novel, The Salt House, with your book club. Do you find any themes that are similar to those in This Is Home?
2. Tim O’Brien’s short story collection The Things They Carried is an important book for Jimmy. Consider reading with your book club; how might its stories of war remind you of the characters in This Is Home?
3. Visit the author’s website at LisaDuffyWriter.com to learn more about her and to read some of her short fiction, essays, and interviews.
4. What is your own definition of home? Consider making a photo album, scrapbook, collage, or other art project that shows your personal definition of home, and then sharing it with your book club.
A Conversation with Lisa Duffy
What inspired you to write This Is Home? How did you visualize the vivid and wide cast of characters?
The inspiration for this story wasn’t one specific thing. It was a couple of things that stuck with me over a period of time. I had read an article in the newspaper about a Massachusetts National Guard unit deploying to Iraq for a third tour. It spoke about the challenges of the multiple deployments from different perspectives—the soldiers going overseas and the spouses and children at home. Several years later, my daughter graduated from high school and some of her friends decided to join the service. Kids who had plenty of other options, but who wanted to serve. For me, the story began there, with a desire to explore the sacrifices and challenges of having to say goodbye to someone who is going to war, perhaps for long stretches of time.
As far as visualizing my characters, I tend to discover them as I write. Word by word, line by line. It’s ne
ver a process of visualizing the cast of characters first, and then writing. It’s finding them by writing the story.
Besides writing your own stories, you also help others write their own. What have you learned about yourself as a writer from your experiences teaching?
I’ve learned through teaching that writers typically have a brutal internal voice. One that can often silence that great sense of intuition that every writer has when it comes to crafting their own unique story. Teaching has taught me to be patient with my own process. To be kind with myself when I’m struggling. Sometimes the best thing I can do is to get up from my desk and just leave the story alone for a bit. Come back to it a day or two later with fresh eyes and a renewed hope for what’s on the page.
You live in the Boston area, where the novel takes place, and you render the area’s atmosphere so strongly and lovingly throughout the novel. Can you talk about why you chose coastal Massachusetts for the setting of This Is Home?
The novel is fiction, but I borrowed some pieces from my own life and went home to my roots for this book. I grew up in the middle apartment of a triple-decker twelve miles outside of Boston. My father was a policeman in town, and we had relatives living in the apartment below us for many years.
One of the things I love about people from this area is their allegiance to the town they grew up in. There’s always such a sense of pride, of identity and belonging. With an edge to it sometimes as well. A sort of “I can say anything I want about my hometown, but don’t you dare criticize” attitude. It doesn’t matter if the town is wealthy and idyllic or income diverse and crowded. Paradise, the fictional town in the novel, is both of these at the same time. Which is true of many towns in Massachusetts, both inland and up and down the coastline. It was true of where I grew up.
I tried to develop a tangible sense of place in the novel because I think most people feel strongly and deeply about where they come from. I think it’s true of how the characters in the novel feel about Paradise. I know it’s how I feel about my hometown. I guess this book is my best attempt at a love story to my childhood, my house, the old neighborhood.